I think the answer is because the norm amongst different races has been to fight for equality first and then from there they would probably shift out towards helping everyone. There is a sense of brotherhood or a sense of belonging that comes with race. If you are black you are likely to feel like you belong in the group if that group looks similar to you. Same thing goes for white people and every other race for that matter. I know not everyone would agree with that argument but if that point is not true than I do not feel like the concept or idea of race would have even been formed. I think for people in minorities the initial fight id I must become equal and if the racial group or even gender group you are in wins battles for equality than that helps you get to the position where you can start to pull others up as well. So first it’s the we take care of our own mindset and then once your own are secure than it is ok to begin to focus on others. But even then as we see today with white people it seems whether consciously or unconsciously people continue to stick with their own race first. And I feel like that’s because of something we said in discussion last Friday. That is the notion of the fact that people naturally come from a place of I. It is nearly always about what is in my best interest. Equality for minorities, and I mean true equality not that notion of it we have today, is obviously in a minority members best interest. I think it is also noticeable that often times white people decide they want to help minorities because it looks good on them. It makes them seem like better people. It kinda goes back, again, to our discussion last week. Why do people do what is right? Because it makes them happy or because the fact other people view them as better people is making them happy? It was an interesting argument but for this case I think a lot of people just want to be seen as better people. If they are seen better and more people like them it would be safe to say they are more secure. In all honesty I find it hard to believe that anyone out there could make me believe that the underlying notion guiding humanity is in the quest for security. This notion has brought us to do some remarkable things. It is what drives nearly every aspect of our lives both the good and the bad. One bad thing that comes with this drive, however, is that we won’t always be necessarily inclined to keep everyone on the same level playing field. It is best to have the advantage, ok to be even, and terrible to be on the small end.

It seems to me that, from the things we have talked about in class, giving material goods is not necessarily the best way to go. Unless those materials are to be used for creating helpful buildings, such as schools, homes, or something in the way of a medical aid building. (We did say in class that medical supplies are not really the best thing for us to use since most expire before they can be given to the citizens). I think the reasons for why these material goods are not that useful or in some cases are harmful vary. One reason is that for the terrain a lot of the heels donated to Haiti do not really have any real use or value. This is probably the case for a lot of other articles of clothing that get donated. Plus the economic value of these donated materials are often detrimental to local business, and thus are detrimental to the probability of Haiti experiencing its own economic growth. Because of this I think that to help Haiti we must help them help themselves. It is easy today to want to do everything for other people who seem to be unable to support themselves, and this is due largely to the fact it seems like we have the means to do so. However, the second we are unable to spoon feed the people they will collapse and immediately regress to the point of dire need again. Now this is a theory that has gone on forever back to the saying you fish for a man he eats for a night, you teach a man how to fish he eats for the rest of his life. I honestly feel the people of Haiti recognize this. I really think they do. This is why all the people who came in to talk about our projects have stated “Don’t give us these things” “we need money to help build our schools feed our children and develop ourselves”. I first of all want to say I admire this mindset. I think it takes a strong people to even face the fact that a lot of work needs to be done to begin developing this nation. I would also like to say we should help and encourage this mindset. If the people of Haiti are ready to face the problems plaguing their nation and I believe they are from the stories told in class, then I think the way we can help the most is to jump start their economy with funds and raw materials that local businesses are in need of. Yarn was something that was mentioned as such a material. This would help to stimulate the Haitian businesses and thus there economy overall benefits. In order to help we shouldn’t try to fish for them but rather help them learn to fish on their own. In this way we can best help Haiti and begin to truly make forward progress in this country which for so long as been suffering.

As time wore on and this concept of religion grew a deeper and deeper part of the culture the hierarchy grows in both strength and severity. Those in charge were close to God they alone could interpret his will to the people. I mean, seriously, what a great way to keep people in order. As we can see this is remarkably successful as the human race along with its culture and society progress forwards. This is kind of where the stupidity comes in that CDMuggie points out. People are dumb and highly impressionable today we see stats about how most kids follow their parents political and religious views. They fail to truly question what things really mean. The nature of humanity is accepted as consistent throughout history and therefore I submit to you the reader that these men were different than the children of today. As they blindly accept the religious leaders the leaders gain more power and even the leader’s posterity begins to just accept that they are of higher power and of greater virtue. As time wears on lost is the idea of uniting people for the good of survival and in comes the idea of religion as a central key to life. It was a very easy transition to make, as again people are impressionable naïve and too dumb to question. Maybe I’m being harsh on people. Maybe people just accepted because that was the easiest way of security. For whatever reason people largely made the decision to keep their blinders on and follow others blindly without question and because of this religion and its hierarchy developed a strong foundation. To this day we see the hierarchy in action. Today going to priests and other major religious leaders to develop a connection with God is a tradition and learned trait from the time of youth. It is something that has always been done since the time the hierarchy was necessary to maintain order.
also CDMuggie is my buddy in this class he wrote pretty much the same thing I did in many regards im really not disagreeing with him as much as my writing may seem. But now that im done this novel im not about to go back and change the tone.

My contemporary CDMuggie argues there is no real need to even have a connection or even belief in a God. I would agree with his argument in regards to the modern world. Do not get me wrong I totally think having a relationship with God or whatever higher power you choose to believe in is cool and ultimately good for you. However, I would not say that it is crucial. Why? We have societal laws set in stone, it is clear well communicated and easily understood by the masses. But, long ago communication didn’t come so easy. With slower communication came slower reaction of authority. And so as we go back further in time we find that it is harder to keep people in line. It is way back towards the earliest recorded stages of society that I disagree with Mr. CDMuggie, in other words in early society I believe a relationship to God was crucial. This is because with God comes answers, with answers come security with security comes strength. Yet many times in the past and even today we see selfish people causing chaos to benefit themselves at the group expense. As one could imagine these acts include thieving, killing, and many more animalistic traits. To end chaos authority had to arise. While the early social structure and laws of man could not contain this chaos perhaps a higher power could. Boom you got yourself the idea of God. Tthis power is the figure to inspire strength in people, provide answers, and in turn provide security. But in order to be truly effective people had to listen to “God”. But how could one communicate directly with a seemingly fabricated idea? Boom you got yourself a religious leader who speaks the word of God. In order to coerce listeners they tried to strike the fear of God into people. Ever wonder why the old testament shows and angry and wrathful God? Well here’s why these writings were created in order to strike the fear of God into the hearts of the people. As time wears on we see less and less actions of wrath and intimidation from above. Why? Because the fear of God had successfully got people in line so that they could come together and exist under the laws of man, but I digress. The wrathful words create a force worth listening to (for safety purposes alone). Now that people began to listen to these words and rules being passed down to them from a priest or someone close to God, we have an established religion with a hierarchy.

In response to the question of the bike stealing experiment I would say I am appalled by and disgusted with the people who walked by for the white thief. Like are you kidding me youre just gonna walk by that and say nothing. For real... Like that is literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I totally understood the people who called out that black actor for acting in an extremely sketchy fashion trying to jack a bike. Of course they should do something about it. But the people who walked by the white actor are a complete disgrace. Are you really that cowardice that you can’t just call authorities? How hard could the thief really be if he is just trying to steal bikes? Like honestly how are you afraid of little punk kid stealing a bike, you’re a grown adult? The white kid is like techniquelly no it isn’t mine then how do you not just wave the red flag that the kid is a fucking thief. That blew my mind. I feel like it is a disgrace that the least physically able to stop the kid couple were the ones forced to take action. Im sure a lot of people are thinking that the people who stopped the black kids were foolishly falling into a trap, however, I saw it the opposite way where the people stopping the black kid were the ones finally doing something right. When we talk about white privilege in class, a concept I have totally believed in my whole life, I never imagined it could run this deep. It is completely obscene how deep this privilege runs. Like I really can not express in words how disgusted I am by this show. It is really just a disgrace to these people’s names that they could be so weak and inconsiderate. That being said I feel like something could be and should be said about old people. One kid mentioned old people and their dfferent reactions make it more likely that an elderly person will confront the thief. Sam kinda cast that idea aside. I disagree with that reaction. If in an extended study where all different people confronted the thief who was white and not just old people I might say that other generations are just as likely to intervene. But yeah no doubt old people are totally more likely to interfere. We know that statistically speaking old people are more likely to be racist and therefore more likely to jump in and intervene on the black actor’s thieving act. And there is something about old people that apparently they are the ones also first to stop and intervene with a white kid trying to steal. There probably is something to this. What that may be probably warrants further investigation. But certainly this should not be thrown aside like Sam did today.

Side bar: im not trying to Sam does not listen to and respond to the class appropriately im just saying I believe this an idea that should have been better received.

After learning all we have learned I still feel like none of the white girls should give up their chair. I also feel like even the original generation should not be asked to give up the chair. In hindsight it might have been possible to share the chair; however I have to disagree that it would be as simple as saying ok let’s share. Some of the more hostile Native American tribes would give a bad rap to all the Native Americans. I feel like they wouldn’t have necessarily been wrong to be hostile either as people encroached on their land. But this really points to a joint inability to share the land. It just so happened that white people emerged again and again as the victors of these conflicts. I think in a time where it was hard to communicate ideas over a massive amount of land quickly it was hard for the people on both sides Native American and white European to really learn who was an enemy and who was a friend. It definitely would have been hard for the white people to learn to separate Native Americans into different cultures and understand who was an aggressor and who was a friend. So with that being said I think it was easy to let conflict take over. Native tribes had been used to warring with each other for a long time before whites arrived and Europeans had been in an extreme age of war with each other over the last several years. In these times its evident that violent conflict would inevitably present itself as an apparent option. In the end it was the white Europeans who would emerge victorious for several reasons. Yet even during this time it was not like white people were like hey you know what would be awesome? Lets go kill and hold a genocide against native americans. The situation was more along the lines of white people trying to go out and make their own existence better. Even this movement was done by a collective white conscience, but rather individuals who wanted to enhance their lives. I would go as far as to argue the native americans felt and tried to do the same things. Of course they were in the bad position of having inferior technology and disease to use against white people, which is why I think we don’t see the fact that native americans also were selfish and tried to do what was best for them. I mean we see evidence of this all throughout history. Different tribes siding with one another to fend of other natives and white people, different tribes allying themselves with different European nations, all so that they could enhance their own existence. Once we stop looking at it from a perspective that all white people tried to kill and steal native lands to a lot of individuals wanted to enhance their quality of life my point becomes very clear. Again the reason white individuals emerged as native individuals disappeared is because white people were better equipped to provide for their own selfish needs than the native americans were. In short I don’t feel any different and while its unfortunate that all these tragedies have happened to native americans it was inevitable and really should have no bearing on white people of today and to white people of all the generations in between. I also feel that sharing the chair would not work due to hostilities on both sides.

Not to keep being defensive but I think it is obvious why so many of us were defensive of the military. I feel like nearly all of us know someone in our family tree who was military, or we have close friends in ROTC or that are actively serving, or we simply recognize there are many veterans siting amongst us in class. I for one feel like it was very easy to rush in and support the military mostly because it seemed to me from class that our options were either you are an ignorant fool or you know that our armed forces are actually quite different from white knights. When being faced with only to ways to go and with the position most of all fall into being attacked (without ever having been given any defense) we feel the need to stand up for what we have believed. I am sure the statistic of its ok to kill 29 enemies for 1 US life fazed a lot of people today but I have to admit that it didn’t do anything to even slightly hinder my support of the military (for the record before i heard this statistic i fully agreed with it and thought this doesnt go far enough we need to value our brothers in arms and the people we protect the most, this number could be 1,000 to 1 and it wouldnt change my stance in the slightest). One reason for this is that I feel this statistic is caused by the many people who have family in the army. Of course they would prefer 29 enemies dead. Why would they want to have the one’s they love killed. Reason 2. Why would anyone rather take a dead soldier who was defending them? It is like saying if my house was being robbed I would rather be killed than have the attacker killed. Reason 3. I can’t really speak for everyone here but I absolutely value the life of my friends and family more than a complete and total stranger. I get that everyone has their own story but still I would totally save my friend over someone I didn’t know. Another thing that annoyed me was the talk about all the innocents who die. I really do for bad about casualties but it happens in war. Besides it isn’t like Americans have never suffered the same thing. 9/11 and Pearl Harbor are just one example where our civilian lives were lost. Our enemies in Vietnam caused ridiculous casualties after the Tet offensive. They killed pretty much any innocent man woman or child they found. So I mean as dehumanizing as this might sound casualties are inevitable in wartime. It is pretty much why people throughout all of time have spoken of the horrors of war. I really do understand where Sam is coming from here but at the same time to take no action is to say sure thing foreign nation/terrorist group you can kill our civilians on our shores and get away with it, normally we would try to stop you but seeing we’d have to take life from you we really are gonna have to just sit here and take it. I don’t know it kind of annoys me that people are always trying to bring down the military that does what it does to help protect us. Sure there are some members in the armed forces who can do atrocious things but those people exist on both sides much like good people exist on both sides. All in all despite what some members of the military may do wrong it is a terrible idea to generalize that army as a whole does this rather than just one individual who happens to be in the army.

OK to answer to all the people saying you have to keep an open mind. To keep an open mind is not to completely agree with all the things sam says in class. Keeping an open mind is to hear his ideas and think them through then make youre own decision. To just be like i disagree with sam because i disagree i stupid and closed minded. To disagree and have reasons why you disagree is simply taking a different stance. Siding against Sam does not make people in this class close minded as many people argue. Even though alot of people opposed Sam this probably was not closed minded defense, rather it was a defense coming from those who are open minded on the topic.

I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. It makes no sense to me. The world is falling apart at the seams. The middle east is on the verge of nuclear war, the economy is completely screwed, Europe is on the verge of collapsing in on itself. North Korea and China are clearly working together. Palestine is uniting. The Republicans running for office aren’t suited to run a convenience store at a gas station. Political parties are driving the country in half. We are fighting wars in the middle east. Everyone has heard of the occupy Kony thing by now. Slavery around the world is as high as ever. There is a massive debate going on about contraception coverage. We still have incredible amounts of unemployment. We’re facing a massive energy crisis. Climate change is changing the world around us. The list goes on and on and on. The world is pretty much in turmoil and the top story is a gay marine kissed his boyfriend when he came home. Why is this even a story. Like seriously who cares if he is happy to see a loved one again. People are somehow actually mad about this though. I know a lot of people are huge fans of this story because they are in the homosexual community or they support that movement. Yet to me this isn’t a big story. We all know that the gay rights movement has steadily been gaining momentum and that most people in newer generations support it. But maybe I am missing the point. Maybe a happy gay couple is more important than looming nuclear war, or the complete collapse of Europe. Why aren’t those the main stories. I mean even in the upcoming election I bet you more people would say they care about the rights of gay people (which the president can not even directly make happen) than the candidates stance on Iranian nuclear development. It blows my mind. I am all for equal rights but come on seriously let’s get our priorities straightened out here. More people caring about this story than people caring about conflict in the middle east is insane. Somehow everyone manages to overlook the fact that this guy was out fighting a war to keep the world balanced. People just look in at this end piece of the puzzle and react no one is like wow this man risked his life to kep the world safe. The fight is the rel issue not the kiss. I would not say im Ron Paul’s biggest fan but this is an issue he has right. Civil issues such as this are really better left with the states. This marks the second time Ron Paul was right. The first time being legalize weed.

All around the world physical appearance is a crucial part to getting a job and moving through the work place. We live in a society that from a young age wants to teach us to dress presentable for work, to speak with eloquence, and even to walk in particular ways. Physical appearance is also stressed to us through the media. We have all heard about how the media and advertising stressing beauty. Even in this class we hear how this advertising even emphasizes specific desirable features. In a society that is increasingly aware of physical appearance, we may be doomed to continue on our trail of employing people for aesthetic purposes rather than on pure skill alone. People tend to be inclined to bond better with people they deem attractive. Besides that people want to surround themselves with more attractive people. Even if this is done only subconsciously this is definitely damaging to a meritocracy. I am really surprised to find out that South Korea requires pictures on applications. I feel like that blatantly shows that image does matter when trying to get a job. In America I think the same thing happens all the time but to a lesser extent. Colleges for example can not just ask for your picture on an application. Even if they went through face book it would take too much time and not everyone is searchable. Companies still try to dig through face book find pictures of people. Although this is not done directly to check out the applicant on appearance that certainly could become one of the side effects. I also feel that if this practice was more efficient and more widely spread we would see an even greater increase in white supremacy during the application process. With the number already at 50 percent it would be startling and alarming to see that number rise. It would be interesting to see if this would also lead to an increase of males hiring attractive females and females hiring attractive males. If this really became the case, which it likely would, then simply being of a particular sex would greatly alter your chances of being hired. With all of that being said I think for some jobs pictures on applications might be for the best. For positions like hostess, waiter, waitress, or anyone who is really dealing with people interaction in person being better looking could benefit your company. People always want to be served by the most attractive person. I mean that’s pretty much what Hooters is based on. All in all however I think that putting your picture, or being forced to, is a dangerous idea to meritocracy. Too often we would see less attractive, yet more qualified people, being passed over for jobs they clearly deserved at a chance in.

I wouldn’t consider myself the most religious person in the class, or even one of the more religious people in the class. However, I certainly would not categorize myself as atheist. There most certainly is some sort of higher power, even if that power is not in the traditional form of God. Recently I’ve been talking to a friend about the astral plane and all sorts of crazy ways in which people have tried to access it. The astral plane is referenced many times in all sorts of religions. Most of them acknowledging they believe in it’s existence. To answer the question of what drives the universe we can look to the astral plane to see some sort of central mind. There are many different ways in which people believe the plane could exist but the most common one is circular. Think of the astral plane as an onion, much like ogres and the astral plane onions have layers. In fact they made up of layer upon, upon layer until you reach the core. Think of this core as God. The core of the astral plane is often referred to as the central mind. It is this central mind that is the driving force of the universe. While this isn’t the most exact metaphor of how the plane works it is one of the best analogies I can think of to explain it. This whole concept could explain what drives the universe along with many other mysterious happenings. Watson and Crick discovered the DNA double helix, however, they even admitted to having seen the double helix before. Crick said that he had seen the image while on LCD. Keep in mind certain drugs including LSD can sometimes take you to the brink of the plane we exist on. While it still may seem like a mere coincidence that he saw a double helix, we also discussed in class about the shamans who saw the double helix. They got here through meditation. These meditation techniques have been mimicked and recreated today through theta waves. Many people continue to try and reach deeper levels of the plane. There are more things that can be explained by the astral plane. These include some things that seem super natural such as seeing the future, déjà vu, and perhaps even ghost stories. Although this still seems like a very crazy explanation to some, religious leaders everywhere acknowledge the astral plane is quite real. There are several stories of where people have been excommunicated from the church for trying to travel up the rings of the astral plane. Hinduism uses the astral plane to explain how reincarnation works. There are countless other religions around the world that are based strictly around the concept of this plane. While it can’t be proven for sure it seems highly likely that the central mind of this astral world is the driving force known as God.